


and the piano has been drinking

by abandonedquiche (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: Under(grad)tale [5]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Humantale, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-06-08 10:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6850921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/abandonedquiche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Sans, and you are an adjunct professor, working in your father's lab when you're not teaching. On Friday nights, you get wasted with your drinking buddy slash sworn enemy, Chara. They're an undergraduate, undeniably intelligent, and dubiously sane. So they make good company, even if you wouldn't admit such a thing out loud. </p><p>However, the kid you encounter on your way back to campus is something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and the piano has been drinking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/gifts).



_**November 201X** _

It’s a little much to call you and Chara drinking buddies. You’re more like two individuals sitting on the same capsizing raft, although the raft no longer seems liable to collapse under your weight. 

You can keep it afloat now, you two depressive drunks, no longer as depressive, and no longer as drunk. _Progress,_ you think. You think you two are making progress. 

Chara definitely is, even if you’d never admit it to them. After last semester’s exploits, it’d be hard for them not to. No place to go after you’ve hit rock bottom but up.

You two keep each other moderate, stop the other from getting too white girl wasted to walk in a straight line. 

Okay, Chara stops you from getting too white girl wasted to walk in a straight line. You stop them from drinking more than they should, which should be zero drinks, given their medication history. But since that’s just not gonna happen, here you two are.

Chara orders another gin and tonic. Grillby stares at their Virginia driver’s license like he knows it’s fake, because he knows it’s fake, but far be it for him to refuse the likes of Chara. You think the two of them talk shit about you when you’re not around, Grillby over your prodigious tab - $1136.89, last time you checked - and Chara calling you either an insufferable bastard or a smiley trashbag.

Smiley trashbag. One of the better nicknames you’ve been awarded over the years. You’ve grown rather fond of it.

They make to down the drink in one swallow before you’ve got it out of their hand and into yours. Call it a magic trick.

“Last call, kiddo,” you manage to say clearly.

They fix you in their reddish gaze and flip you off. “Oh come off it, you asshole. That’s not even my fourth.”

You point out to them that ethanol ingestion interferes with Vitamin K absorption, and they concede the point, sullen-faced. They knew this already.

“Like I really give a shit.” They dig their fists into the pockets of their Mount Ebott University sweatshirt, come up with $4 in change, and order themself fries. You swipe a few on principle. “If you keep going the way you’re going, you’re gonna drown, Sans.”

But they don’t mean it seriously. You’re buzzed, but not utterly shitfaced the way you used to get. Blacking out has lost whatever transitory allure it once held for you.

“I’ve been doing this since you were in high school,” you tell them.

They snort loudly and roll their eyes.

“I’ve been doing this since _I_ was in high school,” they shoot back. “And if you’re too hungover to make lab tomorrow morning, don’t blame me.”

“When have I ever missed lab with a hangover?”

They rack their brains for such a moment.

“The 4th of September, I think.”

“Second week of classes doesn’t count.”

“How does it not count?” they want to know.

You do your best not to laugh at their indignation.

“You try grading twelve awful lab reports sober and then come back to me.”

“One of those lab reports was mine,” they say, even more indignant, pushing their carmine bangs out of their eyes.

Yeah, that it was.

“Thirteen awful lab reports, then. Lucky thirteen. Yours was twice as awful as the others, so it counts for two.”

They deftly flip you off once more.

They’re repeating Orgo II, with you as their lab instructor. They’re repeating all their Spring 201X classes, for obvious reasons.

_(As they related at the start of term, completely nonchalant, that’s what you get for downing a shitload of brodifacoum a week before finals._

_You medically withdraw from six classes in the beginning, and then live long enough - with high-dose phytonadione to fix your body and sertraline hydrochloride plus twice-weekly mandatory therapy to fix your mind, - to take 19 credits worth of coursework all over again._

_“At least you’re guaranteed to ace everything, since you already know it,” Asriel pointed out in that mild optimistic way of his, nevertheless looking nervous as hell while Chara scrutinized their schedule, identical to last semester except for the class times._

_“I’m so excited,” Chara deadpanned. “This is what I get for refusing to stay dead.”_

_You laughed because Chara-making-inappropriate-jokes-about-their-mortality was regular Chara as far as you knew, but Asriel seemed as if he’d burst into tears at the slightest provocation. He would, too. He was the one to carry them to the hospital, covered in blood, since that course of action was actually faster than calling 911. You'd know because you were there. You'd found the note in Chara's lab locker, probably a few days before they'd expected anyone to find it._

_Chara gave him a handful of wadded up but unused tissues, and hugged him tightly._

_“I was screwing around, Az, I’m sorry,” they said, holding him tighter. “Calm down before you faint. You know I hate the medical center.”)_

“And yet, you gave me a ninety-three,” they remind you.

“As a congratulations on being able to follow basic instructions.”

“Which points to my lab reports being decidedly not godawful.”

They got you there. You inhale slow, and glance around the bar. Your peripheral vision is getting shittier, which suggests that it should also be last call for you.

Chara pushes the remainder of their fries over to you.

“Get some carbohydrates in your system before you puke on me.”

You drown their fries in ketchup, so much ketchup that you have to eat them with a fork. Chara raises a faintly disgusted eyebrow, but says nothing otherwise.

If someone read between the lines of your interactions, you and Chara could almost be friends. Hell, you’re the one who listens to their melancholic spells when they happen, a phenomenon they reciprocate as far as you’re concerned. You two _are_ friends.

If you time-traveled back to last fall, you’d tell your younger self this and he’d insist that such an assertion was a terrible joke, even for you.

And also ask you how you got the time machine working. 

“Grillby, can I get some water for this dipshit? I’ll pay for it and everything.” Chara says, leaning against the bar.

Grillby does his usual head-shake of disapproval and plants a highball glass full to the brim of water down in front of you.

“Dihydrogen monoxide is deadly,” you tell them both.

Chara threatens to knife you if you don’t drink it. 

They’re such a tiny person, actually shorter than you, that you wouldn’t believe them capable of such violence if you hadn’t seen them pull their switchblade on no less than three people last year. To be fair, two of them were drunken frat boys, and both of them had it coming.

The other was some random undergrad you, Alphys, and Undyne had nicknamed Mad Dummy, and… he also had it coming, come to think of it. They pulled their knives on each other, simultaneously.

“Doesn’t kill as fast as I do. Or as painfully.”

You take an experimental gulp of water, enough for their expression to shift from homicidal to merely contemptuous. “ _Point_ taken.”

It takes them a second to realize that you’ve made a knife pun, and when they do, they put their head in their hands and groan.

While you’re otherwise occupied with your H2O, Chara orders another gin and tonic, downs it like an old pro and wipes their mouth on the back of their sleeve.

“What did I say about last call?” you ask.

“What did I say about fuck you?” they respond. They turn out their pockets, and come up with nothing but their student ID. “There. Happy? That’s my last, unless I want to start racking up a tab like you.”

“I am the legendary tab-master. You cannot touch me, Chara,” you grin.

Chara wrinkles their nose at you. “I am perfectly amenable toward getting no closer to your person than I must. Whatever you have might be contagious.”

Which is why the two of you huddle together once you leave Grillby’s. 

That, and the fact that it’s around twenty-five degrees outside, with the wind chill dragging the temperature into the nutfreezingly cold.

Jesus take the wheel, who got the bright idea to turn up the winter?

“We need to stop drinking,” Chara says into their scarf, one arm around your waist.

“Yeah, maybe next week,” you reply, one arm thrown around their shoulders.

“After finals.”

“Definitely.”

You two struggle to walk forward like this, and make slow time. You know a shortcut from Grillby’s back to Chara’s dorm, but you are just a tad too inebriated to attempt it. That leaves taking the long way. Or waiting for the bus, which you think has stopped running.

Just when you think you can freeze no further, snow flurries begin to swirl around you. Chara lets out a spectacular string of curse words, you didn’t know anyone could swear for that long without coming up for breath except Undyne.

You two keep going, and come up on the 24 hour convenience store located across the street from where campus starts. There’s some kid leaning back against the front window, munching on a donut, coil-curly hair obscuring their eyes completely. You can practically feel Chara roll their eyes. They let go of you.

“Not this fucking kid again,” they mutter.   

You chuckle.

“Again? You know them?”

Chara stares at you as if you’ve said something stupider than usual, which is actually saying something.

“9:10 AM General Chemistry, Sans? You’re their prof.”

You think about retaliating that you have around a hundred and ten students in that class, being that it’s the only honors section, and you wouldn’t know 80% of them if you tripped over them. 

But gazing at this student further, you realize, yeah, you are aware of who they are.

Name’s F-something on your attendance sheet - Francesca or Francis, probably  - but they asked, if it wasn’t too much trouble, if you could please call them something else. You’d remember their preferred name were this 9:10 AM Gen Chem and you did not have a couple of drinks in your system. 

They stand there, eating their donut and drinking their coffee slowly, wearing nothing but a thin pink and blue sweater, a pair of dark shorts, stockings, and ankle boots. When they catch sight of you, they grin and wave, hair still obscuring their eyes. 

Chara cups their hands around their mouth and shouts, “Frisk!”

You can practically see the “!” erupt above their head. Their waving grows even more enthusiastic, they’re pretty much jumping up and down now.

“So how do you know ‘em?” you ask Chara, in a low voice.

Chara scowls. “I work in the tutoring center, remember? And you set the unpassable midterm of Fall 201X.”

“My midterms are seldom passable.”

You’ve inherited that much from the old man, the one who expects you in lab tomorrow at 8 AM sharp. Chara should know this as well as anyone; they had you for Chem 111 way back when.

“Yeah, well, they got an 84, they were annoyed about it, and they wanted someone to go over it with them,” Chara continues. “That’s where I come in.”

 _84, huh?_ That was probably the highest grade you gave for that exam.

Frisk sprints across the street to the two of you, narrowly averting accidental suicide via speeding SUV. With all that woolly hair, they remind you of someone’s overeager pet dog. You grin at the image.

Chara’s scowl deepens. You turn and tell them that if they keep doing that, their face’ll stay that way.

“I do so loathe–” Chara begins, until Frisk reaches them and catches them in the biggest hug you’ve seen this week, and that’s counting all the hugs Asriel and Undyne give so freely. 

You wait for the glint of the knife-blade, for Chara to acquaint this poor frosh with what happens to people who touch them without asking, but all Chara does is return the embrace with one arm and a swallowed wince.

“My god,” they mutter against Frisk. “You actual disaster. Who let you leave the house dressed like that?”

Frisk shrugs. “My parents?”

“Your parents are idiots. What are you still doing on campus?”

“Waiting on a friend to text me back about whether or not I can stay the night with them,” they explain. “But they haven’t gotten back to me, so I guess I’m still waiting?”

Chara sighs.

“Waiting. Like that. Outside. In the snow.”

Frisk nods.

Chara sticks out their hand in a “gimme” gesture, and you give them one of your cigarettes.

They light it, exhaling a cloud of carcinogenic smoke into the freshman’s face.

“I felt kinda awkward just standing in the convenience store,” they tell Chara.

“As opposed to standing outside.”

Chara rolls their eyes, seeming to think something over as they take another drag off the cigarette. 

“You can come back with me, if you want. If your friend doesn’t get back to you,” Chara says in a stilted tone. “Y’know, so you don’t _die_ of hypothermia.”

Frisk’s entire face lights up.

“Can I really?”

“Well, this dipshit’s already staying over.” Chara points to you. “Not like he can drive like this. Call it a sleepover or something.”

As it turns out, the bus has not stopped running. The three of you stand in the bus shelter, waiting on the last bus going back to campus.

While you wait, you find out more of Frisk’s story. They’re a seventeen year old freshman - just turned seventeen in September - and a commuter student, since their parents didn’t want to pay for them to dorm. They know Chara, because, like Chara said, they met in the tutoring center.

“Sorry for not greeting you earlier, Professor Gaster,” they tell you.

You laugh yourself silly, much to their confusion. Yeah, you’re an adjunct professor, and yeah you’re a Ph.D student, but Professor Gaster is your old man.

You’re Sans. Just Sans.

You apprise them of this fact.

“Whatever you say, Professor Sans,” they respond impishly.

Then, they wrinkle their nose at Chara.

“How ‘come you smell like happy hour?”

Chara throws their hands up into the air. “Why does the sun rise, freshman? We were coming back from Grillby’s.”

“Grillby’s sells alcohol?” they ask.

The eye that their hair isn’t covering widens. You struggle not to cackle harder.

“Get a load of this sweet summer child,” you mutter to Chara, who cracks a smile in spite of themself.

“I know,” they mutter back to you. And then to Frisk, they say, “not before 4 PM, usually.”

All of you get on the last bus to hell when it finally makes its appearance.

You fistbump the driver - some person named River, who has been driving this route since time immemorial - on your way to finding a seat. You can’t tell whether or not they smile underneath their hoodie.

 _“Tra-la-la,”_   they sing. They turn to regard you pensively. “Somewhere, it’s Saturday, so be careful.”

“I’m always careful,” Chara murmurs. “Cept when I’m not.”

“Which is most of the time,” you snort. 

It’s yet another joke between you two.

Frisk grips one of the bus poles with one hand, and extends the other to the driver.

“Nice to meet you!” they exclaim.

“Tra-la-la,” River replies, in sing-song once again.

You wonder what kind of weed River smokes on a regular basis, and what would be the best way to ask them to hook you up with their dealer. You would very much like to be stoned enough to sing constantly. Maybe you'd think less about your issues that way. 

Frisk pauses to stare at their reflection in one of the bus windows, and nearly falls over when the vehicle skids to a halt at a stop sign.

Chara rolls their eyes, gets up, and plants a hand on Frisk's shoulder. They seem rather annoyed that they have to reach far up in order to do so. 

“It’s you!” they yell at Frisk. And then, realizing how angry they sound, they add, hollowly, "no big deal, really. Not worth falling over for."

They take hold of the back of Frisk’s sweater and forcibly plant them in the nearest seat. Frisk gazes up at them.

“Sorry, I’ve just never taken this bus before,” they respond softly.

Chara sighs, but pats this kid on the head just the same. You’ve never seen them act so nice to anyone, save Asriel and Napstablook. 

“And now you have.”

They return to their seat next to you, and let out the mother of all world-weary groans, once Frisk has occupied themself with staring out the window.

“Fucking freshmen.”

You smile. 

“Damn, Chara,” you remark. “You really are making progress.”

In a stage whisper, they tell you to go screw yourself sideways.

 _Relative_ progress, anyway.


End file.
